


Coffee & Donuts, reprised

by delighted



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 22:23:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8640451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delighted/pseuds/delighted
Summary: For the one year anniversary of my first posted fic.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little coda to “Coffee and Donuts,” my first posted fic (well, “little coda,” it’s several times longer than the original, which is less than 400 words). Not sure where I was going with this—I’d started it way back in the summer, and then neglected it, and when I finally started writing again after a month being consumed by life, I came back to this first, because I really wanted to post it on the 24th. It took, I’m sure, a slightly different turn given where my mind’s been of late. But, in one of those beautiful things about writing, I think that worked out just perfectly.
> 
> It wouldn't be an anniversary fic without some thank yous:
> 
> To those who’ve been reading my stories from the beginning, those who found me along the way, and those brand new readers as well: I never could have imagined the response I would get, and you have continued to amaze me with your kudos and comments and your voracious reading of words I write.... This has been so wonderful for me..... Thank you all, so much, from the bottom of my heart.
> 
> I could not post a story this important to me without acknowledging JeffreyAlan. You all should know, you who love my writing... you really should thank him. He has been such a stunning presence in my life for the past many months.... I would not be where I am, in so many ways, without him. I owe him more than can ever be expressed with words. Just, you know, because that needs being said.

“Mmmm, what’s this?” Danny sighed contentedly, as he found himself being nuzzled by a still-damp, slightly salty Steve.

“Brought you coffee and malasadas,” Steve whispered in his ear.

“Mmmmmmmm,” Danny replied. “You _do_ love me.” He found himself being kissed at that. “So, gimme,” he responded, oh, so romantically. Struggling against a Steve who was attempting to snuggle him, Danny sat, eyes still shut, and held out both hands—one ready for the coffee, the other anticipating a malasada.

Steve chuckled. “You are so predictable. You do realize this is how I won your heart, right?”

“Well, I never imagined it was with trying to get me killed, but really? Coffee and malasadas was what did it? Huh.”

“Sugar and caffeine,” Steve amended. “In virtually any form.” And he pressed the coffee cup into Danny’s waiting hand, but held back with the box of malasadas.

“Well, you’re half way there, what’s stopping you?” 

“Open your eyes,” Steve said softly.

Danny tilted his head in interest, then slowly opened his eyes. There were flowers sitting on the bed next to the malasadas. A lei, to be precise. The stereotypical purple orchid kind, the classic tourist lei. Which had a not-so-classic significance to Danny.

“What’s this, babe?” He asked, smiling, as he reached out to touch the glistening flowers. He had a fondness for them, he would admit, to Steve, after a few glasses of wine. This fondness sprung entirely from their first night together as more than friends. It had been a crazy day, a wild case, and they’d been simply relieved to make it through unscathed. This relief had found itself expressed in the form of a somewhat wild night of drinking and carousing and celebrating and flirting—with each other. Which had felt at the time like a revelation, but later was seen to be simply the inevitable next step from the endless banter and bickering (neither of which had let up since). At any rate, the flirting had escalated to the point that Steve had bought Danny a lei from a vendor who’d been targeting the tourists at the resort they’d somehow found themselves at, having wandered in from the beach. When Steve had put it around Danny’s neck, and gone to kiss his cheek, as was the tradition, he’d found himself being pressed up against the wall, and his lips had been claimed by Danny’s. When they’d pulled back, Danny’d said, with a completely straight face: “Thanks for the lei, babe.” They hadn’t laughed at that, surprisingly, and that had been when they’d realized. It had taken Kono showing up at Steve’s door, when neither of them had answered their phones the next morning, to get them out of bed, and amazingly they’d not looked back once. Which explained Danny’s fondness for leis. But did not explain why Steve had gotten him another.

“Happy anniversary,” Steve managed, around a smirk of epic proportions.

“Ohmygod,” Danny actually gasped. “I cannot believe....”

Steve’s smirk broadened. Which Danny would have sworn would have been impossible. “Yep,” Steve confirmed. “One year ago today, Kono nearly broke down my door, and you nearly gave her a heart attack by answering it naked.”

Danny blushed. “Yeah, why was it that seeing me naked was more terrifying for her than finding you pointing your gun at her?”

Steve bit his lips together. “It might have been a combination of the two,” he admitted. And kissed Danny again.

“Fair point. Well, this has been a lovely little trip down memory lane, but can I have a malasada now please?”

Steve put the lei around Danny’s neck, kissed his cheek, and handed him the box.  

“So, wait,” Danny said, pausing in his attempt to open the pink box. “Where did sugar and caffeine come in to it? As I remember that evening, it was more about the rum and vodka and the blue Curaçao than sugar and caffeine.”

“Well, yes,” Steve admitted, “I will happily pay tribute to rum and vodka and blue Curaçao this evening when I take you out to celebrate. Because they got you in my bed.”

(Danny very elegantly snorted coffee through his nose at this point, just, so you have the full picture of this romantic scene.)

“But it was sugar and caffeine that won me your heart.”

Danny gave Steve a challenging look that seemed to say “Prove it.”

“You do realize it all began before the night of the lei,” Steve started.

Danny looked like he might protest that, but gave up. At the same moment he managed to get the box open, so he was a little distracted by the smell of the warm sugar and dough that greeted him.

“Well, it did. Long before—” Danny had opened his mouth to say something but Steve held out his hand. “And, no, I do not mean the first time I go you shot, OK? But I did learn, fairly quickly, that if I was going to make a habit of getting you shot at, I needed to make up for it with coffee and malasadas.”

Danny sputtered around warm sugared wonderfulness at that. “How does making up for getting me shot turn into winning my heart?”

“Yeah, that’s just one of those adorable Danny things I love about you,” Steve said, leaning in to kiss the sugar off Danny’s lips.

“Hey, get your own,” Danny replied, peevishly, while holding the box away from Steve’s grasp.

“Don’t you want to share them with me?”

“Um, no, not really.”

“That’s so sweet.”

“I am very sweet.”

“...Which might be because of all the sugar you eat, you know....”

“Well, in that case, I’d better keep it up!”

Steve conceded the point and leaned back on his elbows, watching Danny lazily. After awhile, Danny felt slightly disconcerted. He studied Steve, curious to see if he could tell what the big dope was thinking. It wasn’t long before he gave up. He’d finished one of the plain malasadas, and had been about to pick a filled one, but he set the box down and turned his focus to his coffee, thinking that maybe the caffeine would help his brain work better, and then he’d see what Steve was getting at. He’d turned his back to Steve for one second. Just one, okay? And when he turned back around, Steve had grabbed the chocolate filled malasada and was holding onto it, looking at it rather more fondly than one should really look at a baked good, and that was Danny’s opinion, alright? And Danny had a very fuzzy line when it came to acceptable levels of fondness for pastry.

“Steven,” he began, he hoped threateningly, but was fairly sure it was just amused.

Not looking up from the glob of chocolate that was utterly defying gravity by staying clung to the side of the malasada, Steve mumbled “Uh-huh?”

Danny’s heart kind of turned over. This man was everything to him, he clearly had to be, as he was not at all having his usual “Not the chocolate one if you want to live, creep!” reaction. Maybe that was how you knew, he mused to himself, finding he was growing warm all over. Maybe Steve was right, and it was malasadas and coffee by which Danny at least realized that Steve had won his heart. But he was certain it had been Steve’s character that had done it. His selfless sacrificing—which, yes, drove Danny to the brink of madness and frustration on a regular basis, counted in trips to the Emergency Room for stitches and casts mostly, sometimes minor surgery. But also his deep, bottomless capacity to love people who didn’t seem at all, to Danny, to deserve it. Namely, himself. Because it hadn’t been Danny at his best that had stolen Steve’s affection. It had not been Danny’s brightest moments that had set that sparkle in Steve’s eyes. And it most certainly had not been Danny’s shining optimism that had pushed Steve over the top of his fall into everlasting love for his pessimistic, negative, critical, complaining partner. In fact, if Danny thought about it, which he now was—as he suddenly was half way though his coffee which came as a surprise to him—if Danny thought about it, it had to have been exactly all his worst aspects, his most dark and damaged bits, his gloomiest hours, which had seen Steve’s presence at his side grow into a constant, unwavering, persistent, unrelenting—well, you get the point.

Danny felt like he’d grown cold at the thought. It wasn’t like he didn’t know that it was just as possible to fall in love with someone’s “frustrating” aspects. Yes, it was Steve’s propensity to leap without looking which both got him hurt and saved lives on a nearly weekly basis. Danny both loved and hated it, and knew the two were not separable. It wasn’t even “two sides of the same coin,” it was more... enmeshed than that. But there was such a strong thread of positive, of this deep conviction and trust, oh my god the trust... not just the leap without thinking trust (that in and of itself was something Danny knew he would never have... even he would leap, of course he would, if someone’s life was hanging in the balance, but he never “trusted,” never felt some invisible net would catch him, he always, _always_ knew he could simply die at any given moment, and that was something he chose to live with because he couldn’t live any other way) but it was something deeper, more... almost spiritual. Steve simply trusted life. Which if you thought about it was stunningly remarkable, after all that had happened to him in his own. Danny didn’t trust life, are you kidding me? Look at the crap life hands you. Look at how it can all crumble in your hands as you’re doing your damnedest to protect it, let alone if you turn your back for even one second. It just is unfathomable to trust in that fucked up process. But Steve didn’t feel that way. Wouldn’t even cross his mind for one second. And yet... it was precisely Danny’s own being mired in all that gooey, clingy, sticky, messy view on the sheer crumminess of life... somehow that had led this man, this amazing, powerful, freakishly certain, trusting, and let’s face it, unimaginably _hot_ man, to fall inexorably in love with Danny. And that was something that had suddenly hit Danny square in the chest.

“I’m sorry, buddy, did you want the chocolate one?” Steve’s words shocked Danny out of his revelation.

“Huh?” He managed.

Steve’s smile slanted adorably. “I grabbed one while you were distracted, and it was the chocolate filled one. Did you want it?”

Danny started to laugh. Really, it was the only thing he could do.

Steve’s head tilted to the side in that stupidly cute puppy dog thing that it did. “Why is that funny, Danny?”

Danny set his coffee down, motioned for Steve to put the malasada back in the box. “Come here,” he sighed, as he stopped laughing.

Steve grinned and did as he was told. Obedient as a dog for such a supposed cat person, Danny found himself thinking. They really should get a dog.... but he was being kissed by a still slightly damp, salty, coffee flavored—ohh, that’s why his coffee hadn’t lasted as long, why the— _mmmph_. And he gave up and just kissed Steve back.

Maybe Steve was right. Maybe it really was all about the coffee and donuts. Because that made a lot more sense than this other tangled thing of darkness and scary stuff. But then again, maybe that was okay too—that it didn’t make sense. Maybe Danny could just trust that, a little bit... since Steve did. Maybe he could learn to trust, maybe not. But maybe he could just ride along in the wake of Steve’s own trust, Steve’s tenacity, Steve’s sheer force of will. Maybe that was enough to carry them both through whatever darknesses came their way—and he knew there would be many. Well, maybe... if there were enough coffee and donuts along that way as well....

And now it was clear that Steve had a lot more than either coffee, donuts, or just kissing on his mind, and Danny smiled and decided to trust _that_ , just for now. And he was glad that he did.


End file.
